Faire Claire
by Sweet and sour sauce
Summary: This is a prequel to my first story, Vaccine Melidean. You don't really need to have read that to understand this though. T for now but it will most likely go up.
1. Let's play at my house next time

**Prologue for a prequel!**

**This is back five years from 'Vaccine Melidean' when they were still in high school. This will revolve more around the miner characters and Claire, Melidean's best friend at the time. I have not yet decided weither this will be more comidic or dramatic. We'll know soon enough though.**

**Let****'****s play at my house next time****…**

As many young girls do in this city, Claire walked along the side walk, biting her bottom lip and darting her eyes from point to point. Recently a news report went out that a murderer was at large in their humble town. Said murderer was found at the scene of one of his own crimes but escaped with out even one of the police officers seeing his face. Wanted posters were every where but all they said was, "Have you seen a crazy man with an eating disorder and pointy objects?"

Thus far they have provided no help or peace of mind to the community.

Claire decided to quicken her pace off to her best friend's new house. They'd just moved in the day before and Claire was prepared to use her house warming gift as a weapon if need be.

A large tin of potato chips, around the size of a sitting dog only cylinder shape.

At home, she used them to get up in higher places and chairs if need be. Right now she was thinking more about its uses as a knee cap smasher.

She checked the piece of paper her friend had given her again and looked at the houses around her. The paper said '791'… She had more walking to do. Claire was only in the 830's right now.

_This is a lot farther than her old house! I'll have to ride my bike next time._

After roughly another ten minutes of walking, Claire finally found the address she wanted. She sighed and hurried to the door. Placing the potato chips at her side, she rang the door bell repeatedly until another young girl opened the door and, in a rush, grabbed her hand and pulled her in.

"Wait!" Claire slipped back out and grabbed the giant tin. "I brought you a present!" She said as she hurried back in the safety of the indoors.

"Ooo… Chips!" Yelped the other girl happily. "Thank you so much Claire!" She said, taking the chips and starting into the kitchen.

"You're welcome Melly!" Claire gave her a toothy smile, following her into the kitchen.

"You know I hate it when you call me that." Melidean moaned.

"Yes but it's fun!" Claire giggled.

Melidean got a large metallic bowl out of a cardboard box on the table and filled it to the over flow point with chips. "Come on, let's go watch TV."

"Alright, but what was the point of that?" Claire asked, following her again into the living room.

"Point of what?"

"Putting the chips in a bowl. They're already in a tin." Claire pointed out, plopping down on the sofa.

"Reflex I guess." Melidean shrugged, taking a seat next to her.

"Reflex? That doesn't make sense!"

"Well, ever since I was little I've put chips in bowls, I don't know what that's called though." Melidean admitted, placing the potato chip bowl between them.

"Force of habit?" Claire asked, grabbing a hand full of chips and eating them one by one.

"Yeah, that." Melidean agreed as she fished for the remote.

"Looking for this?" Claire asked, tossing her the remote.

"Thanks." She said simply, turning on the TV.

"_Good afternoon and welcome to the news at three. A new development in the missing murderer case. An anonymous call to the police revealed that someone suspected of committing the crimes was living somewhere in the Jackson area."_

Both girls gasped. They lived in the heart of Jackson! The murderer could be hiding in the ditch behind Claire's house or that old shed in that creepy kid's back yard.

"_All residents are encouraged to stay calm as this has not yet been confirmed. In related news, from the victims of the murders it can be said that the main targets are between the ages of sixteen and thirty five."_

"That's comforting…" Grumbled someone standing in the door way between the kitchen and living room.

"Hey mom." Melidean said, grabbing another chip.

"They still talking about that murderer?"

"Yup." Claire said, her attention still on the TV.

"_More on this story as it develops."_ The announcer finished before the show cut to commercial.

"You kids shouldn't be watching stuff like that." Melidean's mom said, grabbing the remote and turning off the TV. "It's bad for your brains."

"Our brains are already rotted to the core." Claire said, tapping her forehead.

"Go on, go outside. Take in the fresh air. If you get murdered I'll pay for your funerals." The sickly looking woman said, assuring them outside.

**Your mom is weird.**

**AN: Sorry that took so long. I've been occupied with other projects. I'll be writing more soon.**

**Next will be the first chapter set two years later.**


	2. Some time later

**AN: WOW!!! Long time no see, I know. Bleh. Well I'm back now and I have a brand spanken new chapter for you all so stop your whining and enjoy.**

**Hot off the press this afternoon!**

Some time later…

"It feels like we're still on vacation, you know?"

"I guess. I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of in school mode already."

"Wow, that was fast."

"Dude, we've been in school for, like, a month now!"

"Nuh-uh. It's been a week and four days."

"You counted?"

A pair of girl sat outside at an old wooden lunch table, a plank of which had been lopped off over the years. The bolts had almost rusted to the point where they crumbled. This led the girls to putting down napkins before placing there food on the table. One girl with unnaturally red hair and the other with leafy green dreadlocks; of all the hair styles she happened to choose one that didn't exist prior to her invention of it.

"Yeah, so, uh, what's on the menu Melly?" Asked the red head.

Melidean let out a heavy sigh, "Same as always, a left over tuna sandwich and a thermos of ramen. Why?"

"I don't know. I'm bored."

"You're bor**ing**, Claire." Melidean corrected her, taking a bite of her sandwich.

"Shut up, shut up! Jimmy's coming over!" Claire hissed.

"What are you getting so exited about? You hate him, remember?" Melidean glared at her companion, ignoring the pimple faced boy now looming close to the table.

"Shut up!" Claire hissed again, waving for Jimmy to come over.

"How are you fine ladies doing today?" Jimmy asked in a voice wavering and cracking from the affects of puberty. His moppy black hair was shiny and oil and if you looked closely, his armpits were clearly sweating like crazy.

"I'm fine!" Claire chirped, being sure to stick her chest out as far as it would go.

"Lovely." Melidean sneered.

Jimmy's already ripped black pants snagged on the splintering bench as he took a seat; he didn't bother to fix it, trying to look cool. "I heard that we're getting some new kids this week from never land." Jimmy winked as though he had made the funniest joke ever told, resisting to snicker.

Claire gave him the same vacant dumb look she gave teachers when she didn't know the answer and didn't want to be called on. "From where?" She asked, tilting her head to the side.

"I dunno." He admitted, shrugging and abandoning his uncomfortable 'cool' posture for a preferred slouch.

"I thought they were coming from the north east." Melidean chimed in, only half paying attention to the conversation.

"Really?" Jimmy gave her a look that was close to dirty, "I could have sworn I heard some kid say they were form California."

"Maybe it's both!" Claire offered, not wanting her life long best friend and her apparent crush to fight.

"That'd be weird, Claire." Melidean sighed, "But then again, what isn't?" She asked no one in particular as she got up to throw away her paper bag.

"Sooo…" Jimmy cooed, "You wanna go out this weekend?" He asked, saying it nice and fast as though he were tearing off a band-aid.

"This again?" Claire sighed. It was almost a ritual of his. After a few seconds of scrambled thought, she figured, what the hell. "Sure, I got nothin' to do."

Jimmy started to get up and leave as he usually did, but this new response surprised him. "Really? You're not just going to leave me there waiting or anything?" He asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. Pick me up Saturday at eight." Claire stood up and walked behind him, trying as hard as she could to do her 'model walk', "I know you know where I live." She whispered in his ear just before the bell for lunch to end rang.

--

"Damn short lunch period, man." Melidean murmured vaguely as she and Claire walked down the hall to english class. They'd managed to get all the same classes because Claire had 'separation anxiety'.

"I think it's our school's little way of trying to keep childhood obesity to a minimum." Claire answered to a question which was never asked.

"Dude, I'm supposed to be the smart one, remember that." Melidean almost hissed, giving Claire a weird look.

"What!?"

"That's the most intelligent sentence I've ever heard you formulate all on your own. Are you wearing an ear piece?" She tried in vain to peer into her friend's ear.

"No, I've just been… I dunno… Thinking." Claire shrugged.

"Still, it's a new trick… And old dogs aren't supposed to learn new tricks…" Melidean's eyes were mere slits as she took her seat in the dilapidated desk designated for her.

"Are you comparing me to a dog or calling me old?" Claire genuinely asked, "…Or both!?" She gasped.

"Never mind, Claire. The bell's about to ring." Melidean shrugged her off, fixing her eyes on the chalk board which they now used as an over head screen because it no longer even gave a hint of ever being green, much less black.

Only a week before, a cheery woman floated in on brand new 'teaching shoes' with soft ploofy hair and a smile that could have warmed Hitler's heart.

Now a tired, older looking woman walked through the door, her face sagging almost more than her breasts. The spectacles tottering at the end of her nose hadn't been there before, neither had the hunch on her back. The most significant effect of school on both the elderly and the youthful is the on set of rapid aging disease. Test it! If you compare a child who's never learned a thing to one that played the piano at age four, the stupid one will look younger!

"Open your books and read." Mrs. Corduroy hissed in a voice rattled by being hoarse twenty four seven for the past week and a half.

"Psst, Melly." Claire leaned over her desk to hiss in Melidean's ear.

"What?" She hissed back, not bothering to look at her.

"What book are we supposed to be reading?"

"She never said. Don't point it out to her though," She warned, "I wanna keep reading my novel."

"Okay, but what am I supposed to do?" Claire was perfectly used to doing anything other than what was intended by the curriculum but she liked an alternative as apposed to nothing-ness.

'Plop' Melidean roughly dropped a leather bound copy of the 'holy bible' on Claire's desk. For some crazy reason, her mother wouldn't let her leave home without it and checked if she still had it when she got home.

"Can I pretend to read it and just zone out?" Claire asked, feeling she needed permission.

"Sure."

--

An hour and thirty minutes later-

Bbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggggggg………..

Claire took a deep breath through her nose and then let it out slowly. "Ahh… Friday, can't you smell it in the air, Melly?" She asked dreamily.

"No," She stated simply, grabbing Claire's arm and pulling her along to the bus. "I don't have a sensitive nose like you do."

It took a moment for this to register-

"Hey!" Claire said finally after they were both on the bus, "Are you calling me a dog again!?"

"Wow, really Claire. Would I, of all people, call you a dog?"

"Yes!" She whined, pawing at Melidean's shoulder.

"Oh never mind." Melidean sighed, turning to the window. Just then, a farley red faced Jimmy at the sight of Claire sat down in the seat across from them, trying to sit up as straight as he could.

"Hey Claire." He squeaked.

"Hi Jimmy!" She waved enthusiastically, if not spastically, to him for no real reason.

"So see you tomorrow at six, right?" He offered, neither of them being very good at striking up conversations.

"Eight."

"What?"

"Pick me up at eight."

"What!?" A third party chimed, followed almost immediately by uncontrollable laughter.

"Melly!" Claire whined.

"It's just such a hideous paring that it's cute!" She wheezed between giggle fits.

"Pfft, ignore her Claire. She's just jealous." Jimmy scowled, glaring at her much as before.

This only made Melidean laugh harder.

"What's so funny?" Asked yet another fourth party, standing in the aisle.

All heads in the back of the bus shot up at the sound of the charismatic voice. Standing before them, or rather, in-between them was an average sized boy who looked on the thin side brandishing a black shirt with the Chinese symbol for evil on it in white.

"Oh, you must be one of the new kids!" Claire said happily, forgetting all prior discussion. Across from her, Jimmy sneered.

"Is that what they're calling us? Huh. I think I'd prefer freak, it's shorter." When he smiled his red and black braces came into full view; perfectly clean. Either they were brand new or his father was a dentist.

"Hee, hee." Claire looked over when she heard the rare giggle from Melidean. Bright red. Melidean's cheeks shown with blush and Claire didn't know if she should laugh like crazy or feel proud. She picked the latter.

"Oh, my little Melly is growing up!" She sang, throwing her arms around Melidean and rocking her back and forth, "I never thought I'd see the day!" She added with a wide smile.

"Ah! Claire, let go of me!!!" Melidean whaled, clawing at Claire's arms around her neck.

"Shut up and sit down!!!" The bus driver called from the front.

The 'freak' made a move as if to say 'mind if I sit here?' and Jimmy responded with a move indicating that no, infact, he may not. So he took a seat in the second to last row which happened to be empty. The rest of the bus gave Claire, Melidean, and Jimmy the back two rows so that the rest of them could avoid the three.

Up front there was some buzz as well and if you listened you could hear the drifting word or two. "…name's Ann." "…Cheer leader…" "…fit right in."

And so on.

On the way home there was an uncomfortable silence for about twenty minutes until Claire finally said. "Melly likes you." And in turn got smacked on the head half a dozen times.

--

"Last stop!" Came the driver's raspy voice. Melidean and all the others that remained stood up and filed off the bus.

Melidean couldn't help but ask-

"What was your name again?" As she walked along side the new boy on her way home.

"Huh? Oh, Nny." The boy with hair like an eccentric political activist said.

"What?"

Nny was about to explain when Melidean's mother called from the front door.

"Get in here! I need your small fingers!" The woman who was in her mid thirties but looked to be forty five or older called.

"Oh, see you tomorrow!" Melidean waved, picking up to a running pace to make it home before her mom went crazy.

--

-At Claire's house the next day-

**Beep beep…** _smash._

"Crap…" Claire moaned. "I forgot to turn off my alarm…" She thought out loud. **Beep beep…Beeeeeeppp…**

"Huh?" _It's not coming from the clock…_ **Beep!** Claire got up and wandered toward the sound.** Beeeeeeeeeeppppppp!!!** Eventually she opened the front door. _It's not coming from inside the house either…_

In nothing but her little pajama short shorts and this-tank-top-got-too-small-so-I'm-using-it-as-a-pajama-shirt shirt, Claire walked out side still half asleep.

"There you are!" Jimmy called, leaning his head out the passenger's seat window.

"Huh? Jimmy, is that you?"

"Yeah, you said to pick you up at eight."

_Smack._

A red print was left on the side of Jimmy's face, popping several of his countless zits.

"Eight Pm you retard!" Claire screamed, turning on her heels and walking back into the house, the whole time fully aware on Jimmy staring at her ass as she walked.

Just before she slammed the door he called, "We're still on for later, right?"

**Slam!**


	3. Stalker?

**AN: YAY! I kept my promise! It hasn't been a month since I last updated! WOO!!!**

**Okay, enough celebrating. -- This chapter has FORESHADOWING! So be watchful of that... or don't. It'll be more surprising if you don't... but, I dunno. Enjoy it however you like.**

Stalker?

After slapping and slamming doors into Jimmy's face, Claire felt pretty awake. Too awake to go back to bed but still too sleepy to do a math problem without a ninety percent chance of the answer being wrong. So she made some toast, ran a brush through her hair and put it up in two little pony tails on either side of her head not really caring if they were off center or whatever.

Everyone else was still asleep thankfully. Her parents were both on sleeping pills and her older brother could sleep through a war. Only the cat yawned, blinked a few times, then laid its head back down for another few hours of sleep.

No one was on the internet, no one replied to email, the whole wide world on the computer seemed deserted except for her! So she tried the TV in her room on the first floor.

Sitcom re-runs "That's what-"… children's cartoons "So the moral is-"… News "New developments in the missing murderer case."

Claire's ears would have twitched had she been a dog. None the less, she listened more intently to the anchor man.

"Just as everyone starts to forget about the case from so long ago, the case is solved." On the screen they showed a picture of a MicCowkiller restaurant, "Earlier today a body was found out side a MicCowkiller burger and grill. One of the very few survivors of the formally missing murderer came forward to identify the body-"

"It's been so long…" The screen showed shaky footage of a man who happened to be smoking, his arms covered in what looked to be bug bites that were infected like crazy, "…I don't know if I still remember his face…" A police officer opened the body bag away from the camera. "AHH!!! OH GOD IT'S HIM! RUN!!!" The drug addict's cigarette fell out of his mouth as he screamed and ran away. The news went back to the anchor man.

"So there you have it. The murderer isn't behind bars but he won't be coming after anyone any time soon. I'm Mr. Squarejaw for news channel eight, news at nine."

"Well I guess that's one less thing to worry about…" Claire murmured to herself, turning off the TV.

She sat there a while, staring at nothing at all. Just sitting there… thinkin'.

_Hmmm… Dead guy. Dead guy makes good cult figure… Dead guy makes good cadaver too… Hmm…_

And other such nonsense.

After about three or four minutes, Claire finally realized that the heavy breathing she was hearing wasn't her own!

She sat up and looked out the sliding glass doors; a shadow on the curtain. Movement.

"Eep!" Claire squeaked and leapt up from the couch. She ran to the door and pushed it open, looking frantically in the back yard for the source of the shadow. No signs of him…

She tip toed to the edge of the ditch and looked down in it.

"Hi Claire."

"Hi Jimmy."

Looking up at her was the sad shell of an adolescent that was never meant to be. Cut up and bruised from his fall into the ditch, lying on his back.

"Why are your pants unzipped?" Claire asked, looking away in shame, red faced.

"Uh!?" Jimmy quickly re-zipped his pants and tried to explain himself. "Um, I was at the video store and I was on my way home and I, uh, thought it would be faster for me to, you know, cut through your yard." He said as fast as he could, he'd never been a very good liar but he found that if he talked really fast people tended to let him off the hook.

"Just get out of here Jimmy." Claire half threatened, letting as much frustration seep into her voice as possible. He was up and running before she could unfold her arms.

She sighed as she watched him run. "And stay out!" She called after him just before he disappeared behind a cluster of trees.

"Fucking stalker." She mumbled under her breath before heading back inside the house.

--

"Salutations." Answered a bored, tired sounding voice on the other line.

"Melly!!!" Claire whined, lying on her bed and talking into her 'vintage' rotary phone.

"Oh boy, what is it now?"

"I think I made Jimmy angry."

"I think you did too. What's different about this time?"

"Meh!!! You're so mean!" Claire continued to whine, "It's not like he stabbed me or something."

"Wait, what did _he_ do?" Melidean asked, a bit concerned now.

"Nothing much," Then she spoke fast and mumbley, "just looking at me from outside my bed room window…"

"Claire." Melidean moaned, "You should have called the cops, not me!"

"But I don't think he really meant it, you know? I think he just wanted to apologize."

"Apologize for what?"

"Well… This morning he came by beeping at me thinking he was supposed to pick me up at eight Am-"

"Fucking retard." Melidean interrupted to say.

"-and then I kind of slapped him…" Claire added in a shameful whisper.

"So that's why you think he's angry at you?" Melidean asked, "You think he's angry because you got angry, slapped him, then ran him off after you found him peeping at you. Do I have it all down correctly?"

"Pretty much…" Claire said as though she was admitting a terrible truth.

"Good, then I can testify his guilt when he rapes and murders you."

"Melly! I'm serious!" Claire let out in a higher pitched whine than usual.

"So am I!" Melidean said, "This guy is going to abuse you, I just know it. I can see it in his eyes." That last bit was spoken with just a hit of sarcasm, but Melidean's worry for her friend was clear.

"You're just pessimistic."

"And you don't have any common sense. You're not really going to go out with him, are you?" In the background you could hear the sound of swooshing and wood against metal.

"Are you making cookies?" Claire asked, twirling the pony tail on the right side of her head.

"Stop changing the subject, and yes, I'm making whoopee pies." Melidean said, getting a bit distracted.

"In that case I'll just come over and we'll talk about it." Claire said decisively.

"Fine, just go right on ahead and invite yourself over. I've got nothing better to do than entertain you." Melidean sighed.

In minutes Claire was fully dressed and standing outside Melidean's house holding the handle of her bike with one hand. She roughly dropped it on Melidean's front lawn before getting the spare key out from under the potted /plant/, which was more of a pot with soil in it than anything else, and let herself in.

--

"Tell me if I'm hearing you right- You think that because you caught someone peeping at you that they're angry at you and that you should apologize to them, right?" Melidean asked, smearing fluffy white frosting on a chocolate, cake cookie.

"Well when you say it like that I sound irrational." Claire said defensively.

"Don't say words like irrational, it makes you sound too smart." Melidean reminded her, placing another chocolate, cake cookie on top of the other one that already had frosting on it.

"Hey! I'll sound how ever smart I feel like." Claire said with a humph, folding her arms and turning away from her dear friend.

"That's improper grammar, Claire." Melidean pointed out, just to prove her own point.

"Aw… really? It sounded right." Claire said defeated.

"Here, this'll make you feel better." Melidean stated more than anything else, handing Claire the whoopee pie she'd just finished.

"Thanks." She murmured, taking a big bite of the delicious concoction.

"But you never answered my question."

"Which one?" Claire asked, licking at some of the frosting on the sides of her mouth.

"You're not going out with him, are you?" Melidean asked, very seriously looking her in the eyes.

"No." Claire said instantly, "At least not now. Not after what he did." She said in some what isolated increments. "Maybe some other time." She mumbled.

Melidean sighed, "If you go out with him **ever** he's going to hurt you." She said with more insistence, "I'm not asking you to never go out with him; I'm just telling you not to blame me."

"Blame you for what?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is he does to you." Melidean finished another whoopee pie and took a bite out of it herself.

"Let's talk about something else. All this pessimistic talk is getting me depressed." Claire said, eating the rest of her whoopee pie between sentences.

"Squirrels are going to take over the world." Melidean said without so much as batting an eye.

**AN: Review if you feel the need. If not, sit back, relax, and watch the world crumble before your eyes.**

**... I feel like I've said that before...**


	4. and so stuff happened

-And so stuff happens

And so time past… and past… and continued to pass. Before they knew it Monday rolled back around. Claire made a conscious decision to ignore Jimmy no matter what… by Melidean's request.

When he got on the bus, she just stared out the window, willing the bus to go faster so Melly would get on. At the last stop before the school Melidean wasn't there!

_Crap. You picked a good day to be sick Melly. _Claire growled in her mind.

In math she buried her nose in a book, finding it hard to read like that, she ended up backing up a bit and finding that the book was upside down.

In science something nudged her hand and she couldn't help but look up. No one had moved, not an inch. When she looked back down there was a small folded up piece of paper by her hand. Drawn on the upturned side was a little frowny face and she could tell just by looking that it had been erased and re-drawn time and time again. The paper had also been folded and re-folded to the point where the paper was soft.

Making sure the teacher wasn't paying attention, she unfolded the note in her lap.

There was almost a full page of writing but they'd all been crossed out to the point where most of the page was just a mass of graphite. Written shakily in the margin was a simple, "Are you mad?" and then a 'Y' and an 'N'.

Seeing as the folded paper was all but shreds, Claire took out a piece of her own to write back.

"No… Melly jst toled me 2 ijnor u. Sorry." Claire never was much for spelling and chat speak was like her native tongue. Cautiously, she past it backwards to Jimmy, knowing full well who wrote the note even for lack of a signature.

She heard him sigh and felt an odd burden lifted off her shoulders.

After a moment of scribbling, he passed the folded note back over her shoulder so it slid into her lap.

"Good. I was worried you would be mad after what happened on Saturday." Jimmy was much more adapt to the english language.

After half a period of passing the note back and forth it was decided that they'd try going out again the following Sunday (Jimmy had trombone lessons on Saturday and Claire had to do laundry on Friday night.). Claire underlined 'PM' about twenty times before she was satisfied.

--

(Much later)

"Melly, you suck." Claire mumbled into the phone, again lying on her bed and playing with her hair.

"Oh, come on man." Melidean said in her defense, "How was I supposed to know that I was allergic to greasy gut balls? It's a very rare allergy."

"Why were you eating at MicCowkiller's anyway?" Claire asked, "I thought you hated that place!"

"I do," Melidean sighed, "My mom just dragged me out randomly."

"You saw that thing about the stuff though, right?"

"What stuff?"

"That guy, from when we were little, the one that killed people."

"Yeah, what about him?" Melidean yawned.

"He's dead." Claire said as if she were passing on normal gossip.

"Hmm. What does that have to do with it?"

"He died outside MicCowkiller's."

"Funky."

"Oh, gotta go."

"See ya' tomorrow."

--

_ i Tuesday… Tuesday…. What's it I hate about Tuesdays again? /i _Melidean mechanically walked to the bus stop in the nipping cold. She layered her clothes but with being so thin she still didn't retain much heat and her cheeks were red as was the end of her nose. In a flash summer had given way to a brutal fall, something she never enjoyed.

_ i Oh, wait, no it's not that. /i _((It's not?)) i _I have that stupid extra class today. /i _

Due to over all low grades throughout the grade levels, Jackson county high school forcedly added another class into the week. It was like having an extra encore but much, much less productive.

Being the klutz that she was, Melidean tripped on an uneven side walk chunk and dropped her hard cover copy of u Lord of the Flies /u . She was quick to snatch it up but when she stood up there was someone waling behind her… i _really /i _ close behind her.

Her first thought was of the creepy old fat guy that used to live around here but that quickly vanished when she was face to face with the new boy.

"Morning." He smiled at her, red and black braces still perfectly clean.

"Uh, hi. Heh." Melidean tried to orient herself but just ended up dropping her book again. She huffed before picking it up again. "Sorry, um what did you say your name was? My memory sucks."

"It's Johnny, but I like Nny better." He told her, starting up walking again. He was wearing a black hoody with a little red cartoon moose on the front saying, 'don't fear the reaper'. The hood was up to shelter from the cold and his hands were in his pockets. "Melly, right?" He asked politely, walking slowly to keep her slower pace.

"Oh, that's just what Claire calls me. My name's Melidean." She explained, half aware that her pants needed to be pulled up and half aware that her cheeks were redder than before.

"Ah, cool. My nickname was self assigned."

"Heh, yeah…" Melidean drifted off, too embarrassed to look at him and too nervous to pull her pants up. She was sure he could see her underwear. Her brain scrambled with hysteric thoughts and she cursed herself for not just putting the book in her back pack in the first place.

After a moment's silence and a few passings of identical houses, Johnny spoke up, "So, uh, what should I know about this place? Any weird ghost stories or legends I should know about?"

"Well… We had this one guy a little while back. He was a serial murderer who no one could seem to locate or track. People had seen him and a few had even considered him a friend but no one knew who he was…" She trailed off for a moment, staring deep into the forest that could be seen between two houses. With out noticing, she stopped walking.

Johnny stopped and looked back at her, "Huh? Did he live in the woods?" he asked, walking back and trying to look from her angle; the hem of his hood grazed her cheek and she jumped.

"Ah! No, no. H-he lived-uh… I don't know where he lived." Melidean said in a flustered rush, almost dropping the damn book again.

"Huh." Johnny gave a general sweeping gesture to the woods, "It'd be a good hide out."

"I guess so…" Off in the distance Melidean heard the muffled shifting of gears and spurting from a muffler. "Ah! We have to get to the bus stop!" She gasped, running down the side walk, confident he'd follow. Sure enough she heard a set of running feet behind her, beating the pavement with each trot.

They stopped and caught there breath for all of five seconds before the bus pulled up to the corner.

Claire waved happily to Melidean even before she had a chance to get up the steps.

"Morning Claire." She smiled, sitting down next to her friend, putting her back pack in her lap. Johnny sat in the seat he'd taken on Friday and pulled an mp3 player from his hoody pocket. For whatever reason, Jimmy wasn't on the bus.

"Morning!" Claire chirped. After a moment of looking from Melidean to Johnny she elbowed her lightly with a sly smile.

Melidean rolled her eyes with a bit of effort. It's not that the physical motion, it's just that it's always hardest to deny the truth when you're blushing.


End file.
